Don Gerson gives talk on “The Four Corners Region”

Don Gerson, FE 78, gave an illustrated talk on the Four Corners of the U.S. Southwest 0n Wednesday, March 15 at Decor House, 1801 F. St. NW, Washington.

Gerson has traveled to the Four Corners area where, the borders of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet, many times over the last 30 years, the latest being this past summer.

His talk focused not only on the stunning landscapes of the immediate Four Corners area, but also on several locations in other parts of the four states.

He has always found the area, particularly the National Parks and Monuments, to be absolutely fascinating, and photographically irresistible. This has resulted in thousands of photographs over the years, but he has pared that down to a select few which he will present along with any accompanying stories.

Several of the photos he showed are in some of the galleries linked to from the Galleries page of his Web site.

Don spent much of his career working with photo imagery techniques related to oceanography, mapping, and satellite imagery. He began as an Oceanographer for the Navy Oceanographic Office studying Arctic Sea Ice.

Don spent a cumulative 2 years in the Arctic over a 20-year period. He specialized in time-lapse photography measuring ice drift patterns. Later he worked on submarine sonar support and developed a method of tracking the Gulf Stream using satellite imagery.

He moved on to the Defense Mapping Agency and used satellite imagery to study ground topography for land operations support. In 1983 he transferred to the CIA Office of Research and Development. Here he developed imagery analysis and automated change detection. Eventually he headed the CIA’s research on Computer Vision. Retired for several years now, Don is now devoting his efforts to photography and maintains his photographic website.